The North Judson-San Pierre School Board members discussed budget reductions during their meeting last night.
There were only three members in attendance, but Superintendent Lynn Johnson explained to those present what cuts they were looking to make. Johnson said the cancellation of grants and declining school enrollment were two main reasons for the $1.2 million cut.
“We used to have something called a small schools grant and then also something called a restoration grant,” explained Johnson. “When we lost both of those, it was a $1 million cut to our revenue right away. The other thing is being a small corporation and with the lack of economic development in this area, we have had declining enrollment every year. When you look at the past eight to nine years, we’ve lost about 400 students. Every student is a revenue source.”
Resignations and retirements were a big factor in budget reduction discussions.
“We were able to save that money. Not all of those positions were filled. Unfortunately that does result in some larger class sizes but through attrition and reducing hours and reducing a few positions here and there we were able to save slightly over $1 million.”
Johnson said that the process was very difficult but she had a lot of support along the way.
“My administration team helped. They identified ways that they could help reduce at the building level. We looked at scheduling and things like that. We had some expenses this year that won’t be recurring. One thing was the upgrade to the infrastructure which was expensive. So it was just a long process looking at every item that we could possibly look at.”
To help with this process, the board approved salary freezes for transportation, non-certified, year-round full-time non-certified salary positions and administrative salaries.
The board voted in favor of the budget reductions.
While there is no solid prediction of things to happen for the next school year, Johnson says more cuts may be needed.
